


feet away and still heavy in your arms

by debeklena



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, canon and i don't always agree, petition for elena gilbert to stop getting infected with shit 2k14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 02:15:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1533911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debeklena/pseuds/debeklena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damon/Elena. Set somewhere during season five, after Damon's infected with the virus and Katherine dies (aka Elena is no longer possessed.) She moves before she thinks. It’s instinctual, and for whatever reason, she’s not afraid. She should be, she knows that—but this is Damon, and she’s Elena, the real Elena, and if she can’t trust him, there truly is no reason to stay; in this house, by the bed they both refuse to sleep in alone. Deep down, she knows it’s not a matter of trust, knows that it’s stupid, knows that he’s as angry at her for leaving as she is at him for running.</p>
            </blockquote>





	feet away and still heavy in your arms

She moves before she thinks. It’s instinctual, and for whatever reason, she’s not afraid. She should be, she knows that—but this is Damon, and she’s Elena, the  _real_ Elena, and if she can’t trust him, there truly is no reason to stay; in this house, by the bed they both refuse to sleep in alone. Deep down, she knows it’s not a matter of trust, knows that it’s stupid, knows that he’s as angry at her for leaving as she is at him for running. So many things will have to be talked about tomorrow; they’ll have to talk about Jeremy and Aaron and a thousand different things, things like Katherine and Enzo and the secrets they’re not afraid to share but pressed to keep. It makes no difference: he always sees her and always wants to. 

The distance between them seems unnatural, wrong in the most possible way, and there is no thought to stepping over the threshold and leaning against the cell door, sliding down into a sitting position, to close the space between them. 

He’s not awake, or wasn’t, but the sound - or the smell - of her stirs him, and his eyes drift open. He’s calm, way too calm, and the only way she can understand this is the notion that he doesn’t believe it’s her. It’s a feeling she knows well. 

The calm doesn’t last long. After a moment his muscles tense, and all she can do is wait. He can’t break free, and she isn’t sure she’d care if he did. If she died, he’d join her, and perhaps that was the only true way for them to be close in the way they need to be close to survive. She doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t, either, doesn’t even tell her to leave - doesn’t have the strength. Stefan’s long since bled him dry (for safety, of course, until they find the antidote she’ll begin searching for in the morning so she can hate him the way she wants to hate him, and love him the way she needs to love him) and he’s weak, weak and tired. She’s not so sure that either of them have ever been so tired.

They don’t hold hands; she’s sure that if she does, if she reaches out, they’ll both be lost. There is only the slightest touching of their knees as they sit across from one another, alone in the darkness. She’s sure he’s sure, sure that he’d beat through the stone until there was nothing left of his hands before touching a hair on her head ever again (it was not her enough to be ingrained in her memory, and yet Elena-like enough for him to never forget.) There’s nothing to do but watch and wait, for tomorrow, for dawn, for Christmas, for the next Big Bad or twisted ploy of the universe. It makes no difference to her; she believes. She always has. Her faith in the world has faltered more than once, but while she’s not so sure there’s good in the world (tomorrow, she’ll think differently - she’ll remember Jeremy and Bonnie and Caroline and Matt, but for now, thinking of them is off limits - if she does that she’ll have to build up those walls again, and she damn well deserves a break), she’s never doubted that there’s good in Damon. 

He’s invented the term not-leaving, she’s sure, but he’s lost his faith, and it seems only right that she forgives that lapse and is strong where he’s weak (he’s always returned the favor.) So she stays, stays in the way Alaric stayed, uncertainty, not-so-steady patience, and the ardent disbelief that the people she loves are ever beyond saving (it’s a damned shame Ric couldn’t take his own advice.) There aren’t any “I-love-yous” or love confessions of any kind, not the slightest reconciliation or faltering. Elena settles for believing that this is what it means to understand Damon Salvatore. He taught her to feed without killing, because he knew that she didn’t want to purchase her life with others - and somehow, in a matter of days, the interest on their lives has been demanded and collected all the same. It’s all just a loan (they’re all going to die sometime.) Being a vampire means digging graves for those who threaten your family and they can’t always shed tears for the loss of those they also lose (you lost her, too.) 

This kind of water doesn’t cleanse. This kind of water leaves you smelling like lake and with a spine that’s too stubborn to shatter when it should. Damon can’t have Stefan because Damon’s selfish (any more than Stefan can have Elena and want to anchor her to the pages she wrote ages ago, his name repeated over and over again.) 

Those people are gone (they’re gone, lost in the darkness), and Elena’s not so sure Damon was any more ready for this version of them than she was. But they survive, they always survive, and her only thought is that she can’t leave him in this cell alone.

Not again. 

 


End file.
